I'd like to update the USA section of psx.xml. Currently it's based on a redump.org dat from almost 1 1/2 years ago; there have been quite a few changes in the meantime. My update would consist of around 80 newly dumped discs, several renames and two re-dumps of identified bad dumps.

Before I actually begin, I thought I'd better ask: Is anyone already working on this?

On another note, I vaguely remember reading - I think it was in the shoutbox - about issues with the existing CHDs. I believe it had something to do with their metadata. If that really is the case, should the entire set be redone? If so, unless anyone is already working or planning to work on that, I volunteer Would it be possible to convert the existing CHDs or would I have to re-convert the source material?

Oh and btw, does anyone have any information about the softlisting status of the other PS1 regions? I'd be willing to help with those, too. About a year ago etabeta wrote that they were being worked on but I haven't heard any news since.

I'm not aware of anyone updating this stuff at the moment, so you wouldn't be stepping on any toes. There's an issue with some excluded metadata in earlier versions of chdman that means current chdman won't produce the same metadata section as the files in the softlist now. Ideally they should be redone at some point if someone has the time.

also if you do the european list, be sure to add the SBI protection files to the entries for the games that need them; even if we can't use them yet, and they should ultimately be integrated into the images, it at least keeps them together until we can work out how to better process them and convert them into proper data to store with the images (I believe they're some form of compressed subdata)

well the primary purpose was to give a place for rare dumps / proper dumps of media where the redump / tosec sets etc. weren't documenting the actual cart content properly (individual chips, custom chips, PCB labels etc.) there were also plenty of CD dumps, prototype dumps etc. and the like that weren't verified to tosec / redump standards but needed a home to avoid them getting lost forever (plenty of dumps have been lost this way, because regardless of what people seem to think the internet doesn't keep things safe forever, cloud services like Mega going down were very damaging)

but keeping some stuff like the CD lists synced up with the latest known good is helpful too, especially for the drivers that work reasonably well.

All software should be in the lists regardless of their rarity or whether it is playable or not, otherwise it's a retrograde step back to the TESTDRIVER era where all of the non-working drivers were hidden from view and/or not compiled.

Would CD matrix codes ever be added to software lists just like ROM part numbers? The PSX software list is void of them aside from the PlayStation game ID. A lot of PSX games had the exact same ID on the disc label even when they were different versions, where the disc matrix would be different unless it was the exact same pressing and therefore byte-identical to the original version.